


Concealed

by ameliacareful



Series: Massa Carnis [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Sam is a slave, slaveAU, slow and steady burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 18:35:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12326580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ameliacareful/pseuds/ameliacareful
Summary: Dean is finding owning a slave difficult.  Sam has a vision of a fire in a home in Lawrence, Kansas.  Much is revealed.





	1. Chapter 1

 

#  #  #

           The department store is a maze of clothing racks and displays. There’s a tinkly piano playing _Insipid Melodies for Shopping_ somewhere nearby. Almost everyone except Dean and Sam is female and no one else is wearing flannel and ratty jeans. Or if they are wearing ratty jeans they’re artfully ratty. Dean deftly dodges a young woman in head-to-toe black holding a perfume sampler. Sam fails.

            “Are shopping today for the woman in your life? Would you like to smell a sample of Chloe?”

            Sam’s about a foot taller than the girl and but she might as well be twice his size. It’s funny to watch Sam try to parse ‘woman in your life’ and ‘smell Chloe’. “He doesn’t speak English,” Dean says, grabbing Sam’s arm.

            “Oh, where’s he from?” the girl asks.

            “Kreplachia,” Dean says, escaping.

            He finds a make-up counter; a complicated, overly lit, shining expanse of glass and displays of every shade of red and pink lipstick imaginable. “Hi,” he says. “My friend here has a job interview coming up and he needs some cover-up.”

            The woman behind the counter looks up at Dean and then farther up at Sam. “Tattoo?” she asks.

            Dean nods.

            Sam’s eyes get big. He looks at Dean and then at the woman.

            “Okay,” the woman says. “Let’s see what we’ve got. “I’m thinking you’re not a make-up artist. Not that you need make-up.” She’s a little appreciative.

            Dean smiles.

            “You’ll want a concealer. We have a really effective one. “Let me see your hand, honey,” she says to Sam.

            Sam has both hands jammed in the pocket of his big brown hoodie. He looks at Dean.

            “Why do you need to see his hand?” Dean asks.

            “I want to match the concealer to his skin tone.” She raises an eyebrow. Duh.

            Sam carefully extracts his right, untattoo-ed hand.

            She chatters as she tries a couple of different shades of cover-up on the back of his hand. “I think the second one is the best match,” she says. “The third one is too pink.

            It doesn’t really match. It looks like when you spackled a wall and then repainted—there’s a slight difference in the color.

            “Then,” she continues, “You’ll feather the edges like so.” She shows them how to make the edges look less sharp. “Then you’ll need a foundation.” She rummages. “What kind of job?”

            “Waiter,” Dean says. “High end place. They roll their sleeves up.” Like the tattoo is a sleeve.

            “Oh, expensive places mean great tips. So that…no, let’s try this…” She puts a skin-colored lotion over the cover-up—Sam’s skin color. She does the same ‘feathering’ thing over his knuckles and around the sides of the patch. “I’ll tell you a trade secret, what you want to do next is give it the lightest spray of hair spray.”

            “Hair spray,” Dean says.

            “Yeah, just barely. Otherwise it can rub off when you’re working.”

            Dean gives her the full grateful grin. “Awesome. How much is the concealer and the what’s-it?”

            “Foundation. Hold on. It’s $47.54. If you go over $50 you get a free cosmetic bag with a sample of our Lively Moisturizing lipstick and our cleanser. You probably don’t want the lipstick but the cleanser is always good.”

            “Yeah, uh, no,” Dean said. Almost fifty is more than he expected but he figures if they went a drug store, someone might be curious. He’s pretty sure there aren’t many slaves looking for tattoo cover-up in a high end department store. He hands over Joe Satriani’s credit card.

            Sam stares at his dirty Converse.

            They thread the maze back out to the parking garage, Sam carrying the tiny lavender shopping bag. “It’s illegal to cover my tattoo,” he whispers in the parking garage.

            “And I paid for it with an illegal credit card,” Dean says, smirking.

            Sam clearly has no answer.

 

#

 

            They stop at a Rite Aid and get some Aquanet and then sit in the motel and experiment. Sam rubs on the concealer and the tattoo disappears. It takes him about ten minutes of fiddling to get it feathered and then covered with foundation and then THAT feathered.

            The tattoo is _gone_.

            Dean hits it with a tap of Aquanet. Maybe a little too much Aquanet, Sam’s hand looks a little lacquered. But nobody would notice. “Look,” Dean explains, “people see what they expect. If you act like a slave, they’ll see a slave. So you’ve got to act like a free man. Like you have a right to be there.”

            Sam studies his hand as if it is someone else’s. Dean’s taken him on salt and burns and Sam has dug graves at three in the morning and he looked less nervous than he does now.

            “You can do this, dude,” Dean says. “It’ll be easier when we get you a suit.”

            Sam nods as if a suit was neither more or less weird. Dean’s pretty sure that it really isn’t. Sam tentatively brushes his hand against his hoodie. Nothing rubs off.

            “See?” Dean says. “You’re a free man in the eyes of the world.”

            Sam frowns at him. “I don’t think this is a good idea, Dean.” Sam can make ‘Dean’ sound almost like ‘sir’.

            “Sure it is. Let’s go get some dinner. I’m sick of drive through.”

            The place isn’t really a diner. It’s called Midtown Deli (although they are no where near New York.) It has a six page menu of sandwiches, salads, breakfasts, mains, and desserts. It has a Mediterranean section with gyros and shwarmas. There were probably twenty-five hot and cold sandwiches, not counting things like Ruebens and open-faced turkey sandwiches.

            “Old school,” Dean says. “Look at that, calves liver and onions on Tuesdays! Cottage cheese diet plate! I bet the sandwiches here are great! What do you want?”

            “Uh…they have milkshakes,” Sam says. “A burger and a milkshake?”

            “Yeah, you should get a milkshake, but you should try something. A real meal. Next we’re going to a steak house!”

            Sam hunches a little and studies the menu. “What’s a real meal?”

            “Like the chicken parmesan, or meat loaf. The pork loin looks good.”

            “Which is better, the pork loin or the meat loaf?”

            The pork loin and the meatloaf are both $9.99, the chicken parm is $13.99. Given a choice, Sam tends to go for the cheapest.

            “Chicken parm and a chocolate milkshake for him,” Dean tells the waitress, “And I want the pulled pork sandwich. Can I substitute onion rings for the fries? And a beer. You want a beer, Sammy?”

            Sam shakes his head. He has his hair slicked behind his ears and his eyes are dark in the restaurant and he looks about twelve.

            “I’ll bring you both waters.”

            She’s back with Dean’s beer, their waters, and a basket of bread. “You want the milkshake with the meal or after?” she asks.

            “During. After there’s pie.”

 

#

 

            The chicken parmesan is great, of course. Sam makes himself eat not too fast. He chops up the long strings of stuff with the side of the fork. There’s so much of it. Dean starts to say something.

            “Yessir?” It just keeps slipping out.

            Dean shakes his head. “How do you like your pasta?”

            Sam has no idea what is pasta and what is something else but it’s all good so he says so.

            Dean gives him an onion ring. They don’t sound good but they are. The milkshake comes in a tall narrow glass.

            He eats more in a day than he used to in a week, he thinks. Of course, stock chow is dry and dense, he didn’t need as much. They used to soak it in warm water and that made it better. But it wasn’t like this.

            It’s so weird sitting in a restaurant this way. He’s sat in a restaurant before, on the floor, being quiet. Not often, but he has, smelling all the smells and watching the server’s shoes go by and hating everyone in the place. Sometimes when he was working or at Walt’s he would just seethe with hatred.

            He loves sitting on the bench of the booth across from Dean and he should be happy with it, but if someone realizes what he is… beating. Arrest. If he’s arrested, unless Dean wants to go through all the legal issues of getting him out, at best they’ll send him down to a farm or a factory. He tries to keep his left hand in his lap but the little pieces of cut up stringy stuff—the pasta, maybe?—are hard to eat.

            It’s out of his control. He should just enjoy it. Enjoy finally sitting level with everyone and eating this stuff.

            He doesn’t let himself look at his hand.

 

#

 

            The ghost is an asshole. Well, most ghosts are vindictive, wrathful things but this one is particularly asshole-ian, at least in Deans professional estimation.

            They are in a nice enough house in an older suburb—the place was originally small, maybe two bedrooms. Over more than half a century homeowners have added a family room, turned the attic into another bedroom, blown out the kitchen, put on a screened in back porch, and basically turned a modest little house into an architect’s nightmare. Right now, no one is living in it because, of course, haunted. Three people—an elderly couple and a single guy who bought it as an investment—have died by household objects. The old man was killed because he was rooting around in the basement holding a little flashlight in his teeth. The police think he was holding the flashlight so he could test the breakers. He ‘fell’ on the flashlight and jammed it into his skull.

            His wife died when a toothpick perforated her intestines and she bled to death.

            The next owner died from swallowing a spoon.

            “How do you swallow a spoon?” Sam asks.

            “Pretty sure you have help,” Dean says.

            “So don’t put anything in our mouths.”

            “Bingo,” Dean says.

            They search the first floor (minimal furniture, no curtains, big screen tv, nothing in the refrigerator except soy sauce packets) and the attic (a carpeted empty room). Then Dean leads them down the steps of the basement.

            “No heroics, okay?” Dean says. He’s teaching Sam—they spar and Sam works out and runs—but Sam isn’t a hunter yet. He is, however, relatively fearless. That is, he gets scared but doesn’t seem to understand that means he should not run towards the ghost. He offered himself up for Bloody Mary saying that all slaves have secrets. Dean said he doubted Sam had murdered anyone or was responsible for anyone’s death.

            Apparently Bloody Mary felt otherwise because Sam had looked in the mirror, conjured her up and started bleeding from his eyes.

            Dean is still mulling over that.

            One lesson though is that Sam doesn’t have the sense God gave a cat when it comes to his own safety.

            The basement is cold. It’s cold in the whole house but the basement is really cold, probably haunting cold, and Dean wonders if someone is maybe buried in it. He’s letting Sam use the EMF reader and the thing is going crazy. They get close to the west wall and the lights go out—because when don’t the lights go out—and Betty Crocker the ghost slams Dean into the floor on his shoulder.

            Sam yells and things are crazy. Sam doesn’t have a gun but Dean has armed him with an iron poker, holy water, and salt, and the pressure on Dean lets up. They hightail it back up the stairs. There’s a sledgehammer in the garage and they take it back downstairs. Sam uses the sledgehammer against the west wall and Dean fires salt into the violent asshole.

            Dean almost ends up with a pencil shoved into his mouth, but Sam has cracked the wall and Betty Crocker goes up in flames.

            They make sure that there’s no lingering fire and stagger out to sit on the front steps. “Why did she kill people that way?” Sam asks.

            “Orally fixated?” Dean suggests.

            Sam grins.

Sometimes you find out why the ghost kills the way it does, sometimes you just kill it. It’s about five in the morning, just starting to get light although the sun is not up yet. Dean is exhilarated and exhausted. Sam looks lit up in the gray half light.

            “This is a weird job,” Sam says.

            “Tell me about it,” Dean says. He twirls the pencil the ghost had tried to shove in his mouth between his fingers and then gives it to Sam.

            They leave that morning and drive for several hours before stopping at another motel. Dean’s shoulder is bruised and his back and neck ache from driving while trying not to use his shoulder too much. He’s out of ibuprofen.

            Sam grabs both of the duffels and takes them into the room. Dean would complain but truthfully he’s tired. Sam got to sleep in the car, he didn’t. Sam heads past him again and gets the last bag—the one with the guns.

            “You got ibuprofen left?” Dean asks him.

            Sam nods and Dean opens Sam’s duffel. He finds the bottle of Aleve but also, a stash. A package of crackers from when Dean got chili. Half a stale gas station ham and cheese sandwich wrapped in a napkin. Half a package of wasabi peanuts that Sam saw in a gas station and said Walt ate a lot and Sam liked.

            “Dude, are you hungry?”

            Sam looks at him, clearly bemused. “No,” he says. “We eat all the time.”

            “What’s with the antique sandwich?” Dean holds it up.

            The points of Sam’s cheeks go red. “Oh. I dunno. Just in case, I guess.”

            “In case you want to get food poisoning?”

            Sam shrugs, clearly uncomfortable.

            “I’m gonna throw this out,” Dean says. Sam nods a little fast. “Just the sandwich. I’ll leave the stuff that won’t kill you.”

            Sam ducks his head.

            Dean tries to figure it out. He’s been feeding the kid constantly. Buying him stuff at gas stations and not even bothering to ask if he’s hungry. He knows from the way Sam acts that he hasn’t always had enough to eat and Dean knows a little about what it’s like to be hungry. John tried to leave enough money but sometimes it wasn’t. Dean has done some dumpster diving. Has gone to bed hungry. He can remember stashing stuff…

            Yeah, and he’s dumber than dirt. Sam isn’t doing this because he’s hungry. He’s doing it out of habit. Fear. The kid had never eaten spaghetti. He cut it up and tried to load it on his fork. Sam holds a fork weird, like he hasn’t done it very often. Dean isn’t going to say anything, he’s not a total jackass, but Sam eats like he’s from Mars.

            “Why don’t we pick up some snacks, just to have around,” Dean says.

            “That’s okay. I don’t need anything. You feed me all the time,” Sam says.

            “Yeah, but I like road snacks. You know, beef jerky, Twizzlers, shit like that.”

            Sam nods like he knows what those are.

            “Anything you particularly like?” Dean asks.

            Sam studies the carpet. “Um…apples? I had an apple a couple of times when I was a kid and…I dunno, I really liked them.”

            Apples? Jesus fucking Christ on a stick.

            “Yeah,” Dean says, “We’ll get some.”

 

#

 

            Dean’s neck and shoulder are stiffer the next day. He has trouble sitting still while driving. They don’t really have a case so they’re heading to a post office box in Little Rock to pick up a couple of new credit cards. They stop at a grocery and there are like seven kinds of apples so Dean asks the guy stocking which kind taste the best. Twenty minutes later they’ve endured a long lecture on the travesty of America’s love of those mealy Red Delicious and they have a half dozen Fujis. Also jerky and Twizzlers because Dean really does like those. And Ibuprofen. Vitamin I.

            He gives up on driving at about three and finds a hotel. Sam carries in the duffels.

            Dean thinks about laying down but everything he does is uncomfortable. At five he sends Sam out for pizza and beer for Sam and Jack for him. Some things need more than beer. Sam is back in an hour. He pours Dean a couple of fingers of whiskey and they watch some television show about guys who do custom motorcycles. Ghostbusters is on later. Sam hasn’t seen it.

            Dean waits for the glow of the whiskey to soften the ache and tightness, and it does, but when he finally gets up to pee he can barely straighten up.

            “I’m gonna take a shower,” he says.

            The hot water helps. Sam is watching a documentary about black holes when he gets out. He sits on the bed with the towel wrapped around his waist and contemplates putting on his underwear. Which involves getting back up, bending over and digging them out, shuffling back to the bed, and trying to contort enough to get them on.

            Tomorrow will be better. The day after is always the worst.

            “I used to give massages,” Sam says out of the blue.

            Dean looks at him. He’s a little whiskey washed.

            “You know, for your back,” Sam says.

            “That part of the certified stuff?” Dean asks.

            “Well, I mean, I never trained for therapeutic massage but I’ve given lots of them.”

            Dean thinks he should say no but the thought of having someone get rid of the knots is just too wonderful. He turns just enough to flop face down on the bed.

            Sam carefully rearranges the towel to cover Dean’s ass. He takes off his shirt so he’s wearing just his t-shirt. “Where does it hurt?” he asks.

            “Neck.”

            “So upper back,” Sam says. “Wish we had some oil.”

            “In the pocket of my duffel,” Dean murmurs. “Lotion.”

            He can hear Sam rummaging around then Sam says, “It’ll be cold at first.” It is but after the shower it feels good. Sam’s hands are warm. He starts slowly, working the traps, gentle. Dean moans.

            “Too hard?” Sam asks.

            “No, feels good.”

            On television they’re talking about the giant black hole at the center of the galaxy and Sam works Dean’s shoulder muscles. It hurts but in a good way. Sam uses his thumbs to gently push at Dean’s neck. It’s great.

            “I can feel where you’re all knotted up,” Sam says. “You’re bruised on your shoulder so I’ll be careful.”

            “Mmmmph.”

            Sam stops after awhile and has Dean take a couple of sips of whiskey. More lotion, then Sam really leans into it and Dean can feel all the muscles in his back loosening up. Honestly it’s almost better than sex. Sam’s big hands are moving his whole back and everything feels loose.

            The television is on to a show about how to stop asteroids from hitting the earth when Dean falls asleep.

 

#

 

            After that it becomes a thing. Not every night but once or twice a week Sam says, “You’re stiff.” It’s kind of weird so Dean doesn’t think about it too much but his back and neck have never felt better. Sam works on his big leg muscles, too.

            Dean, for his part, continues training Sam. He loads him into the car one morning and drives out to the middle of nowhere. He’s taught Sam how to disassemble and assemble the guns and clean them, which Sam does carefully. Now it’s time to teach him to shoot. Life would be much easier if Sam was carrying a shotgun full of salt rounds when they hunt.

            Dean leads then through the woods until he finds a clearing. “Okay,” he says. “Time to make you a real hunter.”

            Sam waits, expectant.

            Dean pulls out his own Colt and Sam takes a half step back.

            “Always assume the gun is loaded.”

            Sam knows this. Dean has drilled it into him.

            Dean holds out the gun. “Check it.”

            Sam looks around.

            Dean raises an eyebrow.

            “I…I’m not supposed…” Sam trails off.

            “Not supposed to what?” Dean asks.

            “Stock isn’t ever supposed to be armed.”

            “Yeah, and we’re not supposed to break into cemeteries and houses, or set corpses on fire.” Dean is feeling a little over this whole display. “What’s got your panties in a bunch, princess?”

            Sam stands for a moment and then his gaze drops from the pistol to the ground. He mumbles something about ‘down’.

            “Say again?” Dean says.

            “They’ll put me down,” he says, just loud enough for Dean to hear.

            “Put you down? What are you talking about?” Put downs? Dean doesn’t register at first.

            “A slave with a gun. They’ll euthanize me.”

            “Euthanize—wait, you think if you have gun someone is going to execute you?”

            Sam nods his head.

            “What the fuck?” Dean says. “Where did you—”

            “They bring them back,” Sam says. The clearing is warm even on this fall day. The ground is a little spongy but if you’re careful where you step it’s not muddy. Sam’s shoes, which he appears to be studying intensely, have a little mud on them.

            “Bring who back?”

            “Euthanizations. They bring them to the breeding farms, the crèches where the kids grow up. The kids all watch it. It’s a lesson.”

            “Wait, what?”

            “Assault of a free person, possession of a dangerous weapon, conspiracy to rebel, persistent disobedience, murder of a slave—”

            “Stop. Stop. Just stop,” Dean says. “You clean the guns all the time now.”

            “Yes sir,” Sam says.

            “But if I hand you a gun, you think someone is going to execute you.”

            Sam doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t look at Dean.

            Dean looks around the clearing, trying to think of what he should do. “Fuck,” he said. Sam startles. He really wants Sam to carry a gun. Would Sam do it if he insisted? All right, ordered? Sam probably would. Chances were if he taught Sam to shoot, it would be fine. He’d carry the guns until they were actually on site then only give Sam a gun when he really needed it. What if they ran across a werewolf? The things moved so fast if Sam wasn’t decently armed he’d be in danger. And a liability.

            But one of these days they were likely to run into cops. Sam could wear concealer—but that was risky.

            Euthanize. What a sucky word for execution. Dean has seen a lot of death and honestly, he thinks himself pretty immune but killing people in front of kids to teach them a lesson. That is fucked up. People are scarier than monsters.

            “What about bodyguards,” Dean says. He’s seen famous people with slave security. “A lot of bodyguards are slaves, right? They carry weapons.”

            “Background checks,” Sam says.

            “On you?”

            “Yes sir. And on you and your father.”

            Well, that’s out.

            Sam scrunches up his face, closing his eyes.

            “Let’s figure this out,” Dean said. Sam isn’t listening. For a moment Dean thinks Sam is just really unhappy with refusing to do something but Sam—something is going on with him. Sam blinks but his eyes aren’t really tracking—it’s as if he isn’t really seeing the clearing. Then he puts his hand to the bridge of his nose, eyes closed again as if he’s in pain and makes a weird, pained noise.

            “Sam?” Dean says. “Sam, what’s going on?”

            Sam sways and makes the noise again and it scares Dean.

            “Talk to me!” Dean demands and Sam, he tries.

            “A bedroom…” Sam gasps. “Ah…a child’s bedroom, a woman in a white nightgown. Fire. There’s fire. It’s at a house with a big tree outside—someone is in the bedroom…” If possible, Sam’s face scrunches up even more. “The woman is at the window screaming for help and it smells like matches and rotten eggs.” His mouth works soundlessly and then he just starts to fold over where he stands.

            Dean grabs Sam’s arm and slings it over his shoulder. He needs to get the kid to the car. Some kind of seizure or maybe a stroke except Sam is too young—and Dean knows what Sam is describing. Sam is describing the iconic moment of Dean’s life. Dean leans down and grabs the strap of the duffel bag of weapons and almost loses Sam who swings forward, unbalanced.

            They struggle back through the woods. Sam tries to talk but nothing comes out and Dean is trying to think of who to call, what to do. His dad said to take care of Sam.

            “It’s—it’s—”

            “Just wait until we’re at the car,” Dean says. He doesn’t know why everything will be better when they get to Baby but it’s the only thing he knows to do. Sam’s feet find every irregularity and root in their path, almost pulling them down, and he keeps one hand on his forehead like he’s trying to press something back.

            Dean finally gets him in the passenger seat, feet still on the ground outside. Sam’s breathing hard but blinking again.

            “Water?” Dean says and gets it anyway.

            “I thought they were gone,” Sam says. He wipes at his eyes. He’s white and shaky but he takes the water and drinks some.

            “What was that?”

            “A vision,” Sam says, miserable.

 

#

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Dean confront a poltergeist in Dean's old house and so much more.
> 
> # # #

            Sam draws a tree. He’s not paying much attention to Dean at all while they sit in the hotel room and Dean asks him about his visions and this woman. The child is…a girl? The room he describes has a nightlight with ballerinas on. Dean can’t shake the feeling but at the same time he can’t reconcile the instinct that tells him it’s all related.

            Four years old. His father handing him the baby. “Take your brother outside as fast as you can, and don’t look back.” He has not revisited this memory in years, this thing at the core of his being, being four years old and standing on the dew wet grass with his baby brother in his arms.

            He remembers it.

            He doesn’t know what happened to Sammy. He just knows that he remembers that and later, Sammy was dead and he has memories of being in the car a lot. His dad driving and driving. Over the years he has assumed that there was smoke inhalation. Baby lungs. SIDs, maybe. He doesn’t know and it wasn’t something he could ask his dad. His dad talked once in awhile about his mom and often about the yellow-eyed demon.

            It is his most essential memory. In some ways it is the secret of who he is. Holding that baby, heavy and wrapped in blankets. The baby was calm, looking at him. There were firemen and policemen but he kept holding the baby until his dad took him.

            He missed his mom in a way that words can’t described. But the way the baby just disappeared from their life is the thing that he _learned_. Things don’t just die—they are and then it is as if they never were and silence comes down.

            _He_ has fallen silent. Sam is drawing on motel stationary, slightly hunched.

            Dean digs out the photos he never looks at, of mom and dad and baby and him. Of the house in Lawrence. Sam looks at the photo.

            “It’s not the same tree,” he says. “But it looks like the same house, just a different color.”

            “It’s the same tree,” Dean says. “Just twenty years later.”

            He can not go back.

 

#

 

            It thrums in his ears, like the sound of his pulse; he can not go back. Dean promised himself he would never go back. He will face any monster but he does not need to do that. Sam sleeps for several hours and Dean tells himself that they won’t leave until the morning because Sam needs the rest.

            He expects Sam to be wiped. More than that he expects Sam to be—well, not great. Upset and hiding it. Traumatized. Sam wakes up and says he has a kind of after-headache but otherwise feels great.

            “You’ve got a headache,” Dean points out.

            “Not a headache, headache. More like a, a vision hangover,” Sam says. He looks good. His eyes are bright and clear (and a kind of green-blue at the moment, Dean notes absently.) His color is normal.

            “Are you hungry?” Dean asks.

            Sam nods.

            Dean makes him conceal the barcode tattoo on his hand and then they head out to dinner.

            Dean has a beer before the food even comes, then he’s not really interested in his burger. Sam watches him drink a couple of more beers. Sam is hungry. He eats a chicken sandwich and onion rings, and then finishes Dean’s burger. The kid is putting some muscle on. Finally doing justice to those big shoulders.

            _He can not go back. He can not go back._ It’s not exactly the kind of fear he feels when he faces a monster. That is a bright, energizing thing that he kind of love/hates. Fighting a monster is full of a fear that he can surf, can use to propel himself into action. This fear is cancerous and diffuse. It’s deeply unsettling. Like tumors in his bones making him brittle and tired.

            Back in the motel, Sam pours him a whiskey without being asked.

            “You’re stiff,” Sam says and Dean leers. It’s an obligatory leer, his heart isn’t in it. He showers and flops face down on the bed.

            He hears the crack of the cap on the lotion bottle. “It’s gonna be cold,” Sam says.

            Dean grunts.

            It isn’t cold. Sam has warmed it between his big palms. It feels wonderful, if not quite enough to shut down the thrum of anxiety, the brittleness in his bones.

            “Turn on the tv?” Dean asks. It’s too quiet in the room.

            Sam pours him another couple of fingers of whiskey, then turns the tv on and searches. He finds a movie. Something about a woman who saw a crime and the guy who is protecting her. They’re on the run from the mafia/spies/cops/whatever. The whiskey is a comfort, the familiar promise of warmth and a way to hopefully shut down that pulse of unease.

            Sam starts on his neck and shoulders. He knows Dean’s muscles now, knows the places that tighten and hold onto all the pain and anger of the day. His thumbs crack the knots and then he works out the tightness and crackle until Dean’s whole back is a wave of warmth and ease.

            Dean dozes. The crackle of gunfire from the tv is like familiar music.

            Sam has him drink more whiskey, tells him to lay back down. Dean smushes his face against the pillow. It’s a little scratchy and smells clean, so he bunches it up and embraces it.

            Sam works on his lower back and then his thighs. Those hands covering so much skin.

            Dean blames his arousal on the whiskey.

            Sam kneads the big muscles in his ass and Dean sighs. The couple on the television are locked in an embrace and Dean listens to that rather than allow himself to think.

            Sam runs his fingers on the inside of Dean’s thigh in a way that is unmistakable. Dean wiggles a little.

            “Turn over?” Sam suggests.

            “S’okay,” Dean says.

            But Sam does a thing where he barely drags his nails over Dean’s skin and Dean feels a little wave of arousal.

            “Come on,” Sam says. “You’ll relax better.”

            Dean resists for awhile as Sam works on his calves.

            “Turn over and I’ll massage your feet,” Sam says.

            Dean huffs, amused.

            “No, really, try it. People have done it for me,” Sam says. “I’ve done it for friends.”

            “You don’t have friends,” Dean says. He glances back over his arm to see Sam rolling his eyes. Dean laughs a little, pleased that Sam isn’t in ‘yessir’ mode, and rolls over. Turns out having his feet massaged is incredible. Sam’s thumbs digging into the ball of his foot is practically orgasmic. He is blurry with whiskey and feeling okay as long as he avoids the iceberg of thinking about anything.

            “Please, Dean,” Sam says. “It’s just jerking off, really. Let me.”

            “I’m not gay,” Dean says.

            Sam rolls his eyes. It almost makes Dean laugh it’s such a Sam thing to do even though it’s pretty rare to actually see it. He’s beginning to get a sense of the guy. “That’s pretty obvious,” Sam says.

            Dean gives in. He’s half hard already. It doesn’t feel like _sex_ sex. Not like having it with someone else. It’s just Sam doing what Sam does. Sam cracks the cap on the lotion bottle again and Dean feels a little jump of arousal. He sips the whiskey, looking at Sam over the rim of the glass.

            Sam is not flirting or anything, he’s relaxed and matter of fact as he smooths lotion between his palms. Dean puts the glass down and Sam rests his hand against Dean’s half-hard cock. It feels good and Dean lets himself close his eyes. He lets himself drift. More movie gunfire from the television.

            Sam moves his hand down to gently massage Dean’s balls. He does that for awhile before wrapping a hand around Dean’s cock. Dean keeps his eyes closed and it’s not Sam, not anyone, it’s just hands, stroking, and the quiet sound of the chase scene music on the television, like a distant island. Here he floats on a tipsy sea of the sensation of his cock swelling and contact.

            He is relaxed, and the sudden swell of sensation warning that he’s about to come catches him by surprise. He stutters his hips into it and the world is gone in the shatter of orgasm and he rides it, feeling Sam just holding his dick, just letting him rock through it.

            Sam cleans him up with a warm washcloth afterwards.

            The kid is looking at him in a way that’s hard to describe.

            Devotion. That’s the word. Sam is looking at him with utter devotion.

            That’s too much to deal with right now, so Dean lets himself drift off to sleep.

 

#

 

            He awakes not knowing where he is, a sensation so familiar it’s not worth commenting on. For long moments he resists the call of coffee and bathroom and is just there, drifting between sleep and wakefulness. He feels pretty well rested. He remembers motel room and glances at the other bed. Sam is asleep on his stomach.

            What is he going to do about Sam? Honestly, the best thing to do would be free him. Manumission, they call it. He’s worried that Dad will want to sell him. The money would be great. Might give them a year without worry. Dean thinks of hunting with Sam as temporary and part of him can’t wait to be done with it and get back to normal. Growing up alone in motels—and John left him alone a lot—was torturous in a lot of ways. Scary and lonely. Dean got in trouble a lot for staying at other kid’s houses because John thought it was a risk.

            Dean used to be a people person, someone who hated to be alone, but over time it became a part of him and now, sharing a motel room with someone else is annoying. At least sometimes. Not last night. Not something he wants to think about. But he rubs the palm of his hand against his dick and stretches, then gets up for coffee and bathroom.

            He kind of wants to be on his own again and stop thinking about figuring out how to use Sam to hunt. The kid has lots of potential but Dean doesn’t exactly think of himself as the mentoring type. And the slave thing is an added complication. That business with the gun. Add the visions. Sam is forcing him to go back to Lawrence.

            The logical thing to do is sell the kid. Probably better for Sam. Hunting is a terrible way to live and anybody who does it should do so by choice. Sam is a civilian and a slave dragged into the life. If they can find someone who is decent, it would be better for Sam than a life where everything is illegal and Sam is at risk of Dean dying or being eaten by a werewolf.

            The kid has all those certifications and shit. There’s got to be something better than a brothel in New Orleans, some autistic kid who needs someone like Sam around in his service dog specialty or… Dean knows he doesn’t believe it. Nothing the kid has told him makes him have any belief in the sanctity of slave owners. Sam is screwed if he stays and screwed if he goes. Dean doesn’t want to sell him. Doesn’t know if he can.

            Now they’re going to Lawrence, to the old house, to the nursery. The thing that killed mom, the thing that his father has chased for all of Dean’s real life, might be there.

            Don’t borrow trouble. Don’t think about it before you have to.

            “Rise and shine, Sammy!” Dean says. “Daddy wants his coffee!”

 

#

 

            Sam has come to a conclusion. Dean is going to get him killed. He’s surprisingly all right with it. He doesn’t want to be killed but he doesn’t want to give up this…this experience. This life. He’d rather die than go back. If that means that eventually something horrible is going to go wrong and he’ll end up on a factory farm to be worked to death, or even caught with a gun and executed in front of a bunch of kids and breeders, well, fuck it.

            He has never met someone like Dean. Dean terrifies Sam. But he makes him feel alive.

 

#

 

            At a gas station in Lawrence, Dean makes a desperate phone call out of earshot of Sam. “Dad? I know I’ve left you messages before. I don’t even know if you’ll get ‘em. But I’m with Sam. And we’re in Lawrence. And there’s somethin’ in our old house. I don’t know if it’s the thing that killed Mom or not, but... I don’t know what to do. So, whatever you’re doin’, if you could get here. Please. I need your help, Dad.”

            Sam steps up more than ever. He takes the lead on talking to Jenny, explaining that Dean used to live here. Jenny clearly thinks they’re a couple and without ever touching Dean, Sam makes that feel true. Jenny introduces them to her kids; Sari, the girl with the ballerina nightly, and Ritchie the juice junkie. Sam is a little awkward around kids but he doesn’t talk to them as if they’re brain-damaged and they relax around him.

            Jenny shows them around and tells them about flickering lights and Sari’s belief that there’s something in her closet.

            Afterwards, Dean says they should just treat it like any other case, ignoring the rising sense that he needs to get out of here, get Sam out of here. Instead, he goes back to Dad’s journal.

            “What do you remember?” Sam asks. It’s like something—Deans’ anxiety, or maybe the night before—has given Sam a kind of authority. He’s working the case. Dean could see Sam convincing someone he was a Fed or a health inspector. Sam is getting it.

            “I don’t remember much. I remember the fire... the heat. And then I carried the baby out the front door.”

            “You did?” Sam asks. “I thought your brother…”

            “That was after. Smoke inhalation or something,” Dean says. “Then dad started seeing psychics. He must have seen every single one in town.”

            “I wonder if any of them are still here,” Sam says. He pulls the phone book from the desk and flips through. “All right, so there are a few psychics and palm readers in town. There’s someone named El Divino. There’s, uh –” he laughs, “there’s the Mysterious Mister Fortinsky. Uh, Missouri Moseley—”

            “Wait,” Dean says. “In his journal, the first line.”

            Sam never touches the journal.

            Dean flips it open and shows Sam. “First page, first sentence, read that.”

            Sam reads. “I went to Missouri and I learned the truth.”

            Dean shrugs. “I always thought he meant the state.”

 

#

 

            The fortune teller works out of her house, a nice two story. She’s with a client and Dean expects they’ll have to wait but she tells the man his wife is true as they come and hustles him out.

            Missouri is black and no nonsense. She sighs and turns. “Poor bastard. His woman is cold-bangin’ the gardener.”

            Sam looks as if something went down the wrong pipe.

            “Why didn’t you tell him?” Dean asks.

            “He didn’t come here to be told, he came here for good news,” Missouri says. “Sam and Dean Winchester, look at the two of you.” She has a rich warm laugh, a cackle of pleasure. “Oh, you boys grew up handsome.” She points a finger at Dean. “And you were one goofy-lookin’ kid, too.”

            He was not. He was cute and blond.

            “Sam,” she says and grabs his hand. “Oh, honey…I’m so sorry. So glad your brother finally has you back.”

            Sam looks at Dean, not sure how to explain.

            “This isn’t—”

            “Oh don’t tell me you haven’t figured it out. You’re soulmates, like to like. You feel it, that this is your brother.”

            Dean doesn’t feel anything at the moment. He is so flabbergasted that he can’t think of a thing to say.

            “I’m not—his brother died,” Sam says.

            “You don’t look dead,” Missouri says. “What you think it’s a coincidence that you show up in the system the same month his brother died? Did all those years of slavery make you stupid, child?”

            “No ma’am,” Sam says. “Um…we’re trying to track down Dean’s—um, we’re trying to get in touch with John.”

            “He’s missing?” She shakes her head.

            Dean looks at Sam. “We don’t even look alike,” he says.

            “Believe me or not, it don’t change what you are. Sit, please.” Sam keeps a steady eye on Dean, Dean can feel it, as they sit down.

            “Child,” Missouri snaps at Dean, “you put your foot on my coffee table, I’m ‘a whack you with a spoon!”

            “I didn’t do anything!” Dean protests.

            “You thought about it. So why is your brother still wearing that tattoo. You tell me you ain’t filed the paperwork to free him?"

            "Dad's name is on the title," Dean says.  "He needs to do it or sign it over to me."  Sam is wearing cover-up. His tattoo’s not visible. How does she know?

            Sam is wearing cover-up. His tattoo’s not visible. How does she know?“Because he is still wearing it in his brain,” Missouri says. “He’s still a slave in his brain.” She switches her attention to Sam. “You’ve done good, keeping some part of yourself from being owned, but you don’t need to be owned at all, Sam.”

 

#

 

            She goes with them back to the house and talks to Jenny. Sam finds himself looking at the house with new eyes.

            Missouri is a real psychic. He believes in her. But he doesn’t believe he is Dean’s brother. Seriously, just look at Dean who is strong and sure and takes big bites of life. Sam would give anything to be related to that but never in his fantasies could he have imagined that he came from the same family as someone like Dean.

            He’s imagined the family that he came from, lots of times. He knows there was something there. Some tragedy. He has always assumed unwed mother and drugs or something, maybe prison. Occasionally, a car crash, both parents dead. Darker moments were that they simply didn’t want him. He wondered what sin lingered in his DNA, what awful thing was he capable of? Sasha, who raised him, had taught him that you are what you choose, and what you do. Slaves didn’t have much choice so he tried to be thoughtful about what choices he did have.

            This house is so—kind. Juice in the fridge, not perfectly clean. There are toys and the bathroom upstairs has toys in the tub and toothpaste on the faucet. Could he possibly have come from a place like this?

            No. He couldn’t. That couldn’t have been his nursery. He’d know it, he’d feel it. What he has always felt was his own essential wrongness, the rightness of him being a slave, not because slavery was right but because he deserved it.

            They’re breaking holes in the wall and stuffing hex bags in them when something garrotes him and he grabs the lamp cord wrapped around his neck. Stupid, he thinks, not watching. Then he isn’t thinking anything, just trying to get his fingers under the cord, scratching his skin, but it’s so tight.

            Dean is there, fingers on his neck, trying to get the cord off. Black is creeping in from the corners of Sam’s vision and Dean leaves. His ears are ringing. He’s going to die, and die alone.

            The room blinding white light fills the room and Sam closes his eyes. He’s dead. He’s dead. But something is happening. He can feel something around his neck and then he can breathe. He can’t sit up but he can breathe. Dean pulls him up and against him and hugs him fiercely.

            No one has hugged him since Sasha.

            He can hear the sound of Dean’s heartbeat and it is as close as his own. He wants Dean to be his brother more than he has ever wanted anything in his life and he is too out of it to push the knowledge away. Wanting something always leads to pain. But he wants it, oh so much.

 

#

 

            Dean is done. Done with Lawrence. Done with Kansas. He wants a motel bed. He wants the road. He wants to stop thinking about Sam strangling on the floor. He really wants to stop thinking about this house and his mom and why the fuck his dad hasn’t called him.

            But Sam says he has a bad feeling.

            “We killed the poltergeist. A poltergeist, Sam. Pretty serious business. What more do you want?”

            Sam shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

            “Is this a psychic thing?”

            “Maybe?” Sam says.

            “Like a vision?”

            “My vision didn’t happen,” Sam says.

            No nursery in flames. Dean counts that as a win. They sit in silence for awhile and it feels comfortable. Is Sam his brother? Did his dad know that? Is that why he got him? Why not tell Dean?

            Dean’s mind slides over memories of the night before, of Sam’s hands on him. It wasn’t real. It was…certified for hospitality in six states. Sam has been doing stuff like that for years and it was practically professional. Doesn’t count. And it’s going to stop now because if Sam is his little brother.

            That’s when Jenny screams from the window.

            It’s the usual insanity after that except that it’s fire, in THAT nursery. Training keep Dean moving. His body knows what to do even as his brain decides to go off line. He barely has the presence of mind to yell at Sam to get the kids. Jenny’s door won’t open so he kicks it down, cheap hollow core door splintering against his boot.

            He grabs Jenny and pulls but she says, “My kids!”

            “Sam’s got ‘em!” Dean yells. The fire is already loud. He remembers that sound, louder than anything.

            He drags her downstairs.

            Sari and her little brother Ritchie are standing outside and Sari is crying.

            “Sari,” Dean says, “Where’s Sam?”

            “It got him!” she says, pointing at the house. The door slams shut and Dean grabs at the handle and pulls, then slams his shoulder against it.

            It takes precious seconds to think of what to do. Ax. In the trunk. Every second he’s wondering if he just found his brother to lose him again. He can’t. He grabs the ax and a rifle from the trunk. He runs back to the door and slams the ax into it; one, two, three and four and the door is splintering and he can force his way in.

            What he sees is Sam, pinned against the wall, and a whirling thing of flame. He raises the rifle, pretty sure it’s not going to work.

            “Wait! Don’t!” Sam yells.

            He looks over his shoulder at Sam.

            “I can see her now,” Sam says.

            The flames die away and it’s his mom. His mom. Wearing a nightgown. She is blond and beautiful and more real than his memories. He can’t move. He wants her to hug him. Please. Please be his mom.

            “Mom?” he whispers.

            “Dean,” she says. She walks up to him and he’s looking down at her. Noticing things he didn’t remember, the way her hair curls, the arch of her collar bones, the white of her nightgown.

            She walks past him and looks at Sam. “Sam,” she says.

            Dean knows. Sam is his brother.

            Sam manages to smile weakly.

            “I’m sorry,” she says.

            “For what?” he asks.

            But she doesn’t answer. Instead she looks up and says, “You get out of my house. And let go of my son.”

            There are flames wrapping around her. Flames leaping and rising up to the ceiling. Flames reaching into some other dimension and incinerating something, scorching this house clean.

            Then she’s gone and Sam is free.

 

#

 

            Missouri Mosley walks into her house and puts her purse on the table. “That boy…he has such powerful abilities. But why he couldn’t sense his own father, I have no idea.”

            John Winchester is sitting on the couch. “Mary’s spirit –- do you really think she saved the boys?”

            “I do.” She puts her hands on her hips and turns her sternest look on him. “John Winchester, I could just slap you. Why won’t you go talk to your children?”

            “I want to.” He leans his head into his hands. “You have no idea how much I wanna see ‘em. But I can’t. Not yet. Not until I know the truth.”

            “You need to tell that boy he’s your own.”

            John shakes his head. “He shouldn’t be in this life. They told me he’d be placed in a family. Adopted.” He looked up at Missouri. “Maybe it’s better if he stays a slave.”

            Missouri looks at him, a black woman making a white man recognize what he’s just said.

            John has the grace to realize. “You’re right,” he says. “But I can’t face them yet.”

            “I don’t know what those boys are headed for but it’s big.” Missouri sighs. “Angels and demons are working to bring them together.”

 

# # #


End file.
